A research article co-authored by SLIS doctoral students Shuheng Wu and Dong Joon Lee, and associate professor Besiki Stvilia was published in the Journal of Library Metadata (Volume 12, Issue 2-3, pages 61-82, September 2012). The article, titled “Authority control for scientific data: The case of molecular biology” explores authority control practices and issues in molecular biology, and makes a comparison with bibliographic authority control.

Here is the abstract from the article:

This article analyzes the authority control practices in molecular biology using literature review and scenario analysis and makes a comparison with bibliographic authority control. The analysis indicates the absence of conceptual authority control model in molecular bioinformatics. In addition to traditional knowledge organization tools, authority control in molecular biology requires the use of reference sequences and version numbers to identify entities and keep track of entity changes. The identified authority control issues are conceptualized as quality problems caused by four sources. This study can inform librarians and educators of the need for and approaches to authority control in molecular biology.

Read the article online:

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/19386389.2012.699822